


Since I Fell For You

by Multikicker



Series: The 'Since I Fell' Universe [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amelie plays the violin, Angst, Emily's here, F/F, Friends and tea help counteract bad situations, Grafted Accelerator, I'm Bad At Tagging, It's flashback central up in here, Kicking Em while she's down, Overwatch Ame, Role Shuffle, Talon Tracer, Targeter, This is the product of intense hypothetical discussion and too much free time, Valkyrie - Freeform, doing things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multikicker/pseuds/Multikicker
Summary: Emily Oxton has been through too much in such a short time. Her wife, Lena, boarded the Slipstream Prototype for its test flight and vanished when the aircraft exploded. Rising above the grief, she donned a temporal acceleration device in order to search throughout the timestream for any sign of Lena, but all leads had gone cold.Vowing to be someone Lena could be proud of, she took up her wife's old RAF callsign, and Tracer was reborn.Now, as part of the UN peacekeeping division, Overwatch, she has been deployed to the King's Row sector of London in response to an attack by the Omnic terrorist group known as Null Sector, where she is about to run into the person she is least expecting......





	1. Night, Em.

**Author's Note:**

> "When you give love and never get love,  
> You'd better let love depart,  
> I know it's so and still I know,  
> I can't get you out'a my heart....."  
> \- from 'Since I Fell For You', as sung by Al Jarreau

Emily Oxton dashed through King’s row, pulse pistols blazing as she cut down the arrayed Null Sector omnics. As an OR-14 rounded the corner, levelling its machine gun, she rewound back behind cover with a laugh. “Tick tock, time’s up!” she yelled as she sprinted out again, tossing a pulse bomb forward into the rampant security omnic, and then blinking away as it exploded. Shrapnel rained down in a small area as she brushed strands of red hair out of her eyes, checking ammo levels. Still doing fine.

Subconsciously, her hand went to her left ring finger, lightly touching the wedding band that she wore. _‘I miss you, Lena.’_ She sighed and tightened her goggles. There was no time for painful recollections at present, she had a job to do. Light from the chronal accelerator casting a weak blue aura around her, she began to run again.

Though she tried to keep her mind on the situation at hand, her thoughts kept going back to the day Lena boarded the Slipstream. She remembered Lena’s parting words as she climbed the ladder into the cockpit. She could hear them as though it was happening then and there. **_“Back in a flash, love.”_** Even worse, she couldn’t rule out her own guilt. **_“I’ll hold you to that.”_** They had stood on the altar three days prior and exchanged their vows, professed their love for each other, and sworn to protect each other forever. They hadn’t even had time for a honeymoon before she had kissed her wife goodbye and wished her luck on her flight.

She had had three wonderful days with Lena before they were torn apart.

The test flight had gone horribly wrong, and the safety procedures had failed, causing the Slipstream Prototype to tear itself apart midflight in a vortex of chronal energy, and Lena had been lost. She rounded another corner and paused to send a burst of energy into a Null Sector operative that had been hiding there before diving headlong into reminiscence again. She’d worked without sleep alongside Winston in his lab, only staying awake through Angela’s reluctant administration of stims, trying to work out a solution. Eventually they had designed a device that would allow Emily to ride the timestream and search for Lena there, and they had gone ahead with that, not even allowing the theft of their schematics in a cybersecurity breach to deter them.

She remembered clearly looking up at the lights of the operating room, numb, as Angela and Winston worked in tandem to install the device directly into her, its systems fusing with her body in a symbiotic union of machine and flesh; more than that, though she remembered scouring timeline after timeline, reality after reality, for a trace of Lena, only to have every possible trail run cold. Eventually, she reappeared at the Watchpoint, battered and exhausted. She had cried for days on end after that, and had only been helped out of her depression by the people who had come to visit her. Amélie and Angela had been there for her, the doctor telling her how she could carry on in Lena’s memory while the sniper made her tea and hugged her when she needed it. Winston, too, had been ever-present, and often they had shared their memories of Lena, swapping stories and cracking jokes, until Emily almost felt like she was there with them. Others had come every so often, lending kind words where they could, and slowly she had begun to pull herself back together, to become strong again. She had resolved to join Overwatch, to become a hero, someone Lena could be proud of. She took Lena’s old RAF callsign for her own, and Tracer was born.

From there, Emily had made a name for herself in Britain. Always with a smile and a kind word, people looked up to her, and so she hid away her regret and guilt. She had to be strong for everyone else, and so she did. Still, every time she woke up and looked over for a face that wasn’t there, every time she told a joke to an empty room, every time she flipped through the half-completed photo album she kept at her apartment – _their_ apartment – she felt her façade being chipped away at slowly. She knew she couldn’t keep it up forever, but she’d keep it up as long as she could. For the others who needed heroes. For Lena.

Emily stopped running at a crossroads of wrecked streets and caught her breath, listening in on the sitrep from her comms device. Null Sector was in a retreat, having been denied whatever primary objective they had that wasn’t wholesale slaughter. She was about to begin returning to the firebase when a voice from behind her caught her attention. “Emily Oxton, AKA Emily Norbury, AKA Tracer. My, this IS an honour.” That sounded like- No. She knew that voice, or she used to. But that in turn meant – she whirled, pistols drawn, praying for an outcome she already knew wouldn’t happen.

And there she was, looking so similar to how Emily remembered, but so very, very different. The short brown hair was still the same, though tinged slightly on the ends with purple. The ear piercings, the cocky smile, everything was there. But things were so wrong. The smile was feral, savage. The eyes gleamed with a perverse glee at the situation. The hands, hands that had wrapped around Emily and held her tight, hands that had held her own on a wedding altar, were now holding a gun to a child’s head. In the centre of the chest gleamed a device nearly indistinguishable from her own, burning a menacing red. She didn’t want to believe it, but somehow she knew. And she couldn’t prevent what slipped out.

“Lena?” she breathed, uncertain. The dark figure chuckled slightly. “Don’t you wish. Lena’s dead, hotshot. She died in that plane, and I’m all that’s left. Call me…..Slipstream.” ‘Slipstream’ pressed the gun harder against the little girl’s head and continued, still smiling darkly. “Talon wants you, Emily. That’s why I’m here. So you can come with, or you can watch this little flower die, and know that ya could have prevented it by comin’ quietly. What d’ya say?” The little girl sniffled slightly, reaching up and brushing tears from her eyes. Then she locked eyes with Emily and slowly shook her head, silently pleading. Emily swallowed nervously, and then nodded.

“I won’t do it.” Emily whispered, and let her guns rip at Lena’s – _no, Slipstream’s_ – head. The other woman dodged quickly, rewinding just like Emily could. That last piece clicked into place, and she knew who had stolen the Chronal Bell schematics. They’d taken the product of her and Winston’s sleepless nights and used it to take Lena from the timestream, and turn her into this…… _thing._ Emily blinked forward and leaped, colliding with the Talon agent and wresting the girl from her grasp before landing back on the ground. She squeezed the girl’s arm in what she hoped would be a comforting gesture, and pointed towards a street leading away from the area. “Go.” She told the girl, and gave her a slight nudge. “I’ll protect you.” The girl nodded and ran, leaving Emily to face Lena alone.

She sighed and turned around, ready to end this, and froze. Slipstream was nowhere in sight. A shiver ran up her spine as a voice from close behind her spoke, every syllable harsh and cruel. “I’ll drag ya there by your own mangled legs if I haveta, but you **are** coming with me, Tracer. Whether ya like it or not, there are only two roads from here. Either ya come with me and serve Talon, willingly or not, or ya die. So choose. Now.” Emily turned, slowly, to face Slipstream, pistols held ready. Her face was only inches from Lena’s – _not Lena_ – now, and she stared directly into her eyes, unflinching. They were cold eyes, dead eyes. Sharks have eyes like that, unfeeling and predatory. Slowly, Emily shook her head.

“I won’t. I would rather die than become a monster.” Emily said, glowering at Slipstream. With a sigh of disappointment, Slipstream raised her gun so Emily was staring straight down the barrel. “We would’ve made such a good team.” Slipstream said, bringing the other pistol up to match the first. “They would’ve made ya into a masterpiece.”  
“I’m not in the habit of being _used_ ,” she responded, reaching out and moving Slipstream’s guns so that they aimed at her accelerator. “All I want is you back, Lena.”  
“Tough shit. I told ya before, Lena’s dead.”  
Emily reached out and brushed a hand on the cheek of the woman who had been her wife, laughing sadly. “Oh, love……” she said, holding back her tears. “You’re crying….”

* * *

 

Slipstream blinked and touched her face. It was oddly wet, and her eyes stung for whatever reason. Shrugging, she aligned her handguns with Emily’s accelerator and emptied both of them into her chest.

* * *

 

Emily fell back with a stunned expression, crying as she hit the asphalt and lay there  in the dark street. With faltering hands she undid the front of her jacket, reaching into the inner pocket to pull out a photograph. Unfolding it, too wounded to care about the bloody fingerprints staining the picture, she stared at it as her vision darkened. She was posing with Lena outside the hangar for the Slipstream Project, arm around her smiling wife’s shoulder. Lena was laughing as she rustled Emily’s hair. They were so happy…….

Emily Oxton smiled faintly as the last of her life fled her eyes, the last thing she saw having been her love the way she wanted to remember her.

* * *

 

Slipstream put away her pistols and signaled to the evac craft, which began its approach. Turning back to face the still-warm corpse, she regarded it for a moment before softly whispering something, without really knowing why.

“Night, Em…….I love ya.” She pursed her lips, frowning in confusion. “……..why did I say that?”


	2. Interim, or: Sooner Or Later, The Past Finds You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I guess I'll never see the light,  
> I get these blues most every night,  
> Since I Fell For You....."
> 
> \- From 'Since I Fell For You', as sung by Al Jarreau

Slipstream was about to turn and wait for the hovercraft to descend when a high-velocity round caught her in the shoulder, sending her reeling backwards for a second before a subsequent shot hit her other shoulder, driving her back into a wall. She cursed and rewound, narrowly dodging the third shot, which would have ventilated her head against the stone brick of the building. A second later, the actual sounds of the gun being fired rang out, the projectiles having moved at supersonic speed.

Bleeding, Slipstream looked up to the source of the shots and froze as she spotted who had made them. On the rooftop across the way, she saw the glow of light filtering through a pair of unfeeling blue retinal lenses, peering out from a segmented metal headpiece. The figure stood and leapt from the roof in a flash, launching a grapnel from a forearm gauntlet and swinging down to street level. It was then that she got a clear look at her assailant.

The woman standing in front of her was lithe, clad in body armour and a flak vest, over which she wore a long grey trench coat emblazoned with the Overwatch crest. Her headpiece obscured the upper half of her face behind emotionless eye lenses, set into parts that came together into a mask. From the back of the visor her hair extended in a ponytail. Slowly, the woman bolted the sniper rifle she carried and raised it again at Slipstream. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and carried a definitive French accent. “One more step towards her and I send rounds through your brain and five other major arteries, depriving you of proper blood flow in the event that the headshot does not kill you instantly.”

Sneering, Slipstream clutched at her shoulder and took a step back, unwisely turning on the snark. “Gonna bean me with a white flag along with those empty threats, Baguette? Or did nobody ever tell ya the French can’t fight?” She tensed, preparing to rewind in the event of another attack.

The woman raised her hand to the side of her visor and pressed a switch, causing it to retract to reveal her face. The woman’s brown eyes and features were twisted into an expression of rage, and she spared Slipstream a glance of contempt before turning on a red dot sight on her rifle, the small laser hovering squarely in the centre of Slipstream’s chest. “I don’t make threats. I make promises.” She spat, shifting stance slightly. Sli[stream was about to quip back when a light from above caught her attention.

The night sky lit up momentarily, illuminating a figure descending from the heavens. Winged and armoured, with a golden glow and a long spear in its right hand, like a Valkyrie of ancient legend come to have her pick of the slain. Doctor Angela Ziegler touched down lightly next to Emily’s corpse, kneeling down to close the woman’s unseeing eyes. Standing back up, she reversed her grip on the spear and drove it down into the body with a cry, sending brilliant energy coursing through Tracer’s dead form.

“Heroes never die!”

* * *

 Emily drifted through the void, floating slowly towards a gleaming light. It was over. She could see Lena again, her Lena, her love. She didn’t have to suffer any longer, fight any more. She could have peace.

She drifted closer to the light, smiling, and reached out a hand, almost able to touch it. She thought she heard music in the distance, as if from far away, but wasn’t sure. She was about to touch the light when a hand grasped her shoulder, pulling her back. She turned, weightless, to see Angela standing there with an apologetic expression on her face. “You have to go back, Emily.” She said, outstretching her hand. “It’s not your time yet. There is still so much more you have to do.”

Emily stopped with a pained expression, looking sadly at the doctor. “I just want it to be over, Angie.” She said tiredly. “I want to see Lena again. Someone else can pick up from where I left off. Haven’t I suffered enough?” Angela sighed. “I cannot pretend to not understand what you are feeling, Emily.” She still held her hand out, not retracting it. “But you have to come back. You cannot escape your problems by giving up. That’s not the way.” Emily still stood there, unmoving. “I want this to end…….I don’t want to go back.” She said, voice quavering. Angela took a step forward, tone hardening. “You have to, Emily! You can lie to yourself and give up, or you can see the truth: that _you_ have to finish this. No one else can.”

Emily grimaced. “It’s so painful. To see what she’s become.”

Angela stood still, hand still out. “So do something about it.” She said, hand beginning to glow.

Emily took it, and suddenly her world was awash in golden light, and she felt like she was flying, rushing towards some far destination, until…….

* * *

 Slipstream groaned, slowly stepping back as the doctor’s nanotechnology resurrected Tracer. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, not at all. Her superiors wouldn’t be sympathetic. She shuddered, though not from any temperature difference. She’d be punished for this.

Her communicator beeped, and she looked up as the low hum of turbines filled the air to see the stealth hovercraft descend from the sky above her. She cracked a slight smile at the horrified expression on Tracer’s face as the ship’s bay doors opened and light filtered down, casting her in a pallid glare. She stumbled slightly as the grapple claw attached to the back of her accelerator and pulled taut.

As she began to rise into the air, Slipstream couldn’t resist a last jibe at her target, one last bit of spite to try and break her down further.

“Tracer.” She called out above the hum, and watched the redhead’s eyes flicker upward. Slipstream met that resigned gaze with a smile. “’Til next time, then, love.” And, giggling in sadistic glee, she let herself be helped onto the craft by the waiting medical squad, satisfied that, at least, some damage had been done.

* * *

 Emily sat in silence in a chair by the fire in the Watchpoint’s common area, wrapped in a blanket and cupping a hot cup of tea. The room was empty except for her, which was unsurprising. Word had spread quickly of what happened in King’s Row, and though many members of Overwatch had stopped by to offer kind words, they never stayed for long, awkward silence descending fast. And so now she sat alone.

Emily heard the hiss of the door sliding open and looked up to see Amelíe enter, still in her combat gear and carrying an instrument case. Amelíe crossed the room in a few strides and set the case down, wrapping her arms around her. Emily took a shuddering breath as Amelíe hugged her, holding herself together. “I am so sorry, _mon amie…_..” Emily shook her head slowly as the Frenchwoman pulled back and sat down in the chair next to her. “Don’t be,” she said, drawing her blanket tighter around herself. “We can’t change the past, and I can’t keep cryin’ about it.” Amelíe raised an eyebrow at this, removing her recon visor and setting it on the floor. “It hurts and you should cry about it, _amíe._ You cannot hide from your feelings, nor should you. I would know, _non?_ My husband was murdered by Talon. I did not sink beneath despair, and neither should you. I am here for you, to help you, _oui?_ ” Emily nodded slowly, sipping her tea before whispering back. “……………….thanks, Amé.” The sniper smiled, picking up her violin case and taking the instrument out. “You are very welcome, Emily. May I play for you?” She gave a weak grin in return. “That’d be wonderful…..”

Amelíe raised her bow and put it to the violin, drawing it across the strings slowly, letting the instrument fill the room with music. Closing her eyes tiredly, Emily nursed her tea and let the soft sound wash over her.

Amelíé kept playing long after Emily nodded off to sleep, letting the music fill the room. Too much of her time these days was spent ending lives. There was no time for the small things anymore, the things that lifted people’s spirits, the things that helped ease the pain of a cruel reality. If she could give this small comfort to someone who had been through too much, it was worth it.

The door opened again, and she looked up to see Gabriel Reyes slouch into the room, sans both his omnipresent beanie and characteristic smirk. He stopped in the doorway and looked at Emily’s sleeping, accelerator-illuminated form, then over at Amelíe. She shot him a questioning glance, bow slowing on the violin strings until it fell silent. Shrugging, he slumped into the armchair next to her, staring into the fire. “LaCroix.” She sighed and began packing up her violin. “Commander Reyes. Do you need something?” He sighed, thumbing at the sleeping Emily. “It’s good she’s asleep. She doesn’t need to hear this.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “New orders?” She asked, picking back up her recon visor. He nodded, weaving his fingers together and resting his chin on them. “No matter how you spin it, Lena Oxton died on that prototype’s first flight. Whatever Talon did, there is no recovering who she was.” He paused, and rifled through his pockets, pulling out a small vial of purplish liquid and passing it to her. She led it up to the light, curious. “What is this for?” It was opaque, and shimmered with a metallic glint, seemingly shifting even as she watched it.

“Like I said, Lena Oxton died. So the next time you see this ‘Slipstream’, consider yourself ordered to shoot to kill.” He stood up and yawned, stretched, and threw her a casual salute as he left the room. She didn’t bother to watch him exit, but contemplated the vial he had given her, fire dancing in the background of her vision. She stayed that way for hours, until Emily at last awoke.

* * *

  _She was climbing the ladder into the plane, helmet under her arm, and turned to smile at the red-haired woman who stood its base. “Back in a flash, love.”_

 _She was flying through the sky, hands on the control stick of the jet as she approached the sound barrier. “DeLorean to Control, approaching test area.” The radio crackled for a moment before the response came. “Control to DeLorean. Engage prototype.” She gave a grin beneath the oxygen mask. “Roger that, Control. Gotta get back in time. Or forward, rather.” She flipped the switch and calibrated the jump, sensors identifying the point along her path that was best suited for the blink. The console blinked green. It was the moment she’d been trained for. She pushed the stick forward and activated the mechanism. The edges of her field of vision blurred, and she was_ **wracked with pain, body ignited with white-hot agony, her very form flickering in and out of reality. Timelines flashed past, each more horrifying and strange than the last, alternate universes where events had gone astray from their intended path, where the laws of quantum mechanics no longer even applied. All the points coalesced into a blinding light, which gave way to a void that engulfed her, swallowing her and bathing her form in darkness, until** _her eyes flickered open. She was chained to a chair in a darkened room, surrounded by terrifying machinery whose purpose she didn’t know. Black shapes at control panels threw switches and turned dials, inflicting pain upon her with every new adjustment. Apathetic faces stared down at her as they produced scalpels and syringes from cases and pouches, cutting her, until her voice was raw from screaming. Over and over again, the same question. “Who are you?” She struggled, desperately trying to escape the pain, and then_

Slipstream’s eyes snapped open as she sat up with a dying scream. She took deep gasps of air, hands to her head, trying to get her breathing under control. “What the hell is wrong with me?” She muttered, squinting at the bedside clock’s holographic display. 3:12 am. She gave a shaky sigh, wrapping her arms around her legs and rocking back and forth on the sheets. Every time she closed her eyes, she was besieged by scenes she knew had never happened to her. Some failed test flight, indescribable pain, torture at the hands of an unknown enemy. They weren’t memories that belonged to her, which frightened her more than she was willing to admit.

She got out of bed and changed into her combat gear, wandering the halls of the headquarters until she came up the firing range. Sliding into one of the booths, she stripped down and rebuilt her pistols, making sure no spring or cog was out of place. She blinked, and _heard the redhead’s voice following her up into the cockpit. “I’ll hold you to that.” She smiled down at her, and_ suddenly she was back in the booth, shaking hands holding one of her pistols pointed towards the target, with a near-perfect shot grouping in the centre of its head. She retraced the gun slowly and cautiously flicked the safety back on. That had been Tracer she’d seen in her nightmares, bidding her farewell. Minus the fatalism and the time manipulation device, but that had definitely been Tracer.

Slipstream holstered her gun and left the range again. Tracer knew something about the scenes in the nightmares, and next time they met she’d make sure the Overwatch agent told her everything, one way or another. Be it medication, meditation, or killing her opposite number, she just wanted the visions gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed to make this a three-chapter fic because there were too many good ideas to fit in two chapters.  
> Excuses, I know.  
> This time I got to show you all two of Overwatch's other elite agents, Valkyrie and Targeter. I hope you see their canon universe parallels and mark the differences.
> 
> Anyhow, I hope you enjoy, and as always, constructive criticism and commentary is appreciated.
> 
> 'Til next time, then.

**Author's Note:**

> There are too many ideas in my head, and my coherent thought process is not working too well, so I'll keep this short. I put off S/R/P for so long that it seems like a crime to drop this before I conclude it, but I never claimed to be anything other than an easily distracted creature of darkness.
> 
> ...................yeah, I made up a last name for Emily. Blame Blizzard and their lack of story.


End file.
